Congressman Ron Paul says that the people responsible for the economic crisis should not be hailed as saviors and given more power to fix the problem that they created, but arrested and criminally prosecuted.

Paul told the Alex Jones Show that the only way the private Federal Reserve could be brought under control would come as a result of a mass uprising, noting that there is a lot more awareness in Washington about the Fed’s contribution to the economic crisis.

The Congressman has two bills before Congress, one to abolish the Fed altogether and another to audit the organization.

“Today they’re protected, they’re in total secrecy and they’re protected by the law – if 1207 is passed we have an audit and they have to answer the questions and I figure, if we ever get that far and get the exposure and get the transparency that we need then people will wake up and realize, why do we have them at all,” said Paul.

The Congressman’s bill to audit the Fed is similar to another bill introduced by Bernie Sanders in the Senate which is aimed at getting the Fed to answer specific questions about where $2 trillion in bailout funds has gone, a subject that Bloomberg News sued the Fed simply to try and discover. Staggering scenes unfolded last week at a Senate budget Committee meeting when Bernanke arrogantly refused to state where any of the bailout money had gone despite repeated questioning by Sanders.

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Asked if the people who caused the economic collapse should be trusted as saviors or criminally charged, Paul responded, “We should have minimal government, but even in a minimalist government your government is supposed to deal with theft and physical harm and fraud, and that’s what’s going on and that’s what they ignore or protect….it’s horrible what they’re doing….and they should be prosecuting these people, these people should be in prison.”

The Texas Congressman also discussed Obamaâ€™s monetary policy, noting that every time a new government initiative was announced to supposedly rescue the economy, the stock markets sink.

“In spite of how a lot of people think the markets don’t know what’s going on, the markets are pretty smart, so the fact that they’re not responding, in spite of all this stuff the government is doing, every time the government comes up with a new program, the markets go down even more,” said Paul, noting that free market advocates were right in warning that the problems will only begin to be resolved once liquidation is allowed to occur.

Asked how bad the economic picture would get, Paul responded, “I think it’s going to be very prolonged, I don’t see any rebound, markets may come back up and that sort of thing but to rebound I would expect it to last every bit as long as happened in the 30’s,” adding that the last depression did not really end until after a world war.

“I think it’s going to be a long long time but now we live in greater danger because people are far more demanding, they believe they have a right to their neighbors property and that’s why there’s liable to be violence….ultimately they’re going to destroy the dollar,” said the Congressman, adding that the only quick solution to the crisis was to follow constitutional principles.